Desktop Tuesday: General progress, terrain, and live stream tomorrow!

Tuesday, 01 October 2013 15:01

inkblot

A couple of you have asked for more content-related weekly updates. I’m happy to oblige.

Terrain Generation!

Here’s a sampling of Albert’s awesome work on randomly generated terrain. I would say that this is about 40% of the way there. There’s still lots more work to be done, especially on the mountains, but it’s really starting to come together.

These shots represent roughly one square mile of landscape. The terrain engine can tile land indefinitely, so there will be no border or “edge” to the world. Here’s what Albert has to say about the current state of things.

We wanted the terrain in Stonehearth to not only be unique and attractive, but also provide interesting tactical or strategic options for gameplay. So, instead of gradually sloping hills composed of tiny little blocks, Stonehearth terrain is constructed from large world-size blocks with discrete plateaus. These plateaus provide a natural obstacle which you can use for defense, or they can be a barrier you need to overcome to reach an important resource.

However, the world is not just rectangular blocks with hard edges. It has been lived in and evolved over time. Chunks of rock have crumbled from ledges, corners have been eroded, and piles of dirt have accumulated at the base of cliffs.

These screenshots show the current state of the terrain. You can see that we have three primary terrain types – plains, foothills, and mountains. Plains allow you to build your town without any obstructions, but also expose your town to anything that walks by. Foothills provide a natural defense, but you first need to figure out how to navigate up and down the hills. Mountains are a huge strategic barrier and may also provide rare resources.

Forests also cover the landscape, providing you with the first resource you will need – wood. You may also notice a few other details about forests. Mature trees tend to appear in the center, and there are several tree lines determining elevations for where the deciduous and evergreens are allowed to grow.

Our Priorities and How They Affect our Work

Just to give you a feel for what’s going on in general, here are some of the major projects that the team is undertaking right now.

Terrain generation and tiling

Particle effects and advanced lighting

Monster AI

Placing crafted items in the world: UI, AI, etc.

Major mod system overhaul, to make it easier to write mods

Major construction system overhaul, to make construction moddable (define your own wall types, etc)

You may notice that about 1/2 the list is to rework existing systems. We feel pretty strongly that a game system isn’t “done” until it not only works, but has clear APIs for modders to hook into. This means that as we’re writing the game, if we find that it’s a pain in the neck to add content, be it AI, GUI, or whatever, we go back and fix the source of the pain. Sometimes that’s a small tweak. Other times it’s a more extensive change.

This definitely adds overhead to the time it takes to write the game, but we think it’s worth it.

Live stream tomorrow, 4:00 PM Pacific

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 1st, 2013 at 3:01 pm and is filed under Blog.
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Valentin

Awesome! Though I think that the mountains should look a little bit more ‘realistic’, since currently they look like big square blocks

inkblotSRK

Yes, the mountains need a lot of work. Don’t worry, they’ll look great in the end!

Eli Butcher

Like most, I agree they need work too, but I don’t think “more realistic” is the way to go though. Add more levels to allow traversal or for general aesthetic, or cave entrances. We haven’t really heard about “mining” abilities/crafting yet, so this may be something that develops as the game continues. So far this terrain looks excellent.

rsdworker

looks great

MajorT

I love the constant updates. The terrain generation looks great, but I agree with Valentin that the mountains could use some work. Keep up the great work!

Smokestacks

Great how dedicated you guys are to making the systems easy for us. Terrain looks good, mountains maybe do need a bit of work as mentioned in other comments, but I’m sure when it’s 99% done (I don’t think you guys will say it’s ever definitely done for a long time) it’ll look a lot more fine tuned than it does now. Keep it up guys!

Voxel_Pirate

Absolutely agree! Great focus on modability… really appreciate this.

tonight i’m the black mamba

Looking great! Keep up the amazing job, you guys!

Andreas

Can’t wait for the release of the beta!
I will enjoy making epic mods for this awesome game! Keep up the work of excellence and diligence

Nicolas Velasquez

I can’t wait for this game, everything looks great and 4:00 pm pacific time is 7:00 pm eastern time right? Also, will you be able to build cities on mountains?

Steve Adamo

hey there Nicolas… “yes” and “probably yes”…

DaRKKoNNaN

And now… NOW… with this desktop tuesday… you kill me T_T now i cant wait more. Not now when u can see the world (obviously, they need a little bit more of work… but… seen cool at this moment! and will be more cool at the end, i know).

Aaaaaargh, incredible this new ^^. Good job radiant!

Morgoth

looking good

SleeKeith

Thank you guys for all the weekly updates ! I really enjoy ( and I`m sure I`m not alone XD ) to know what you`re working on every week. Keep up the good work !

lunatic2147

Great job guys, looks awesome. I have been keeping up with you weekly updates and streams. My nephew and I can’t wait it’s his Christmas present ! Keep it up!

Brent Morton

Maybe have multiple colors and shades, different kinds of rocks ect. will help break up the ‘too blockyness’ of the mountains. But I have full confidence in this team, I’m positive it’ll look good in the end. I’m very happy with it so far! Keep up the good work.

Lewis_McReu

Those mountains sure seem quite tall! Can’t wait to test out the Geomancer on those >:D .

Alfalfa

Foundation foundation foundation. I like that. Keep on rolling guys.

cowforcow

I like the idea of having blocky areas but i think flat and “hilly” areas would also provide plenty of tactical challenge as well. Sometimes a battle in a valley can be more challenging than one in the hills. This would make it so people have to move and flanke and find hier ground.

John Collins

can really see things starting to come together! roll on BETA testing!

Joe

You guys are the most professional team, with a project I’ve ever been interested in backing, on Kickstarter. Excellent development blog, keeping everyone in the loop with concise, consistent updates. It’s inspiring to see such a small group of people take something like this on! Keep up the updates and good work!

Aegon Targaryen

Just, GOOD JOB (/clap), It’s nice to see how every tuesday i can read a piece of information to know what you’re doing right now, it feels great, and it feels even better when i know that i can participate in the forums and that i’ve helped you to make this possible

I’ll probably watch the stream when it’s done (4:00 PM pacific it’s 2:00 AM for me :p) but the game looks pretty nice right now!! keep up the good work!!

Steve Adamo

come on… toss down a redbull (or 6) and join the stream this evening!

Anipaq

Hi, i was just wondering if there was a live stream? I cant seem to find the recording on twitch. Keep up the good work guys, cant wait!

konrad

yeah, I was just wondering the same, can’t find the stream :/

http://ben.infinityboxstudio.com/ BenH

i cant seem to find the stream either D:

mpsinclair

Apparently Twitch changed recording to “off” by default, according to a post above, sadly. They’ve got it adjusted for next time, though.

pandaroc

Looks really great up till now. I’m sure once you get the mountains right it will look fantastic. Following this game now for more than a month and getting really impressed. Will u use alpha maps for mountain generation?

Andreas

If you make the trees drop red leaves at fall. Then at spring make the trees reproduce small trees nearby that grows over time. So if you leave your starting village and go build a new one, when you come back you will find that the vegetation has taken it back
If you could please take a minute and tell me what you think I’d be more than happy

Hahboo

I can’t like this enough!

Steve Adamo

im not sure about auto-growth like you’ve described (which sounds great!), but players will likely be able to plant their own trees:

Can we replant trees, or do we just deforest our world?

“I think you need to be able to plant trees, it’s just a matter of when … so sure you’ll be able to plant trees .. it’ll be something figured out in tuning.”

Are resources on the map finite, will we have to start a new game because they’re exhausted?

“I hope not, that’d be a horrible reason to restart a game … you shouldn’t have to restart the game because you feel like you’ve made bad choices … there’ll always be a way to find resources from somewhere … dig deeper, trade, replant trees …”

BAz

A little off-topic, but how confident are you about hitting the December date for beta release?

Hunt8119dragon

beta is still before actual release so no one can be confident for a beta

Steve Adamo

there will be a “first public build” by December… it will definitely feature the building and crafting core mechanics… everything else will be gravy…

That Guy

Very promising! I love the fact that y’all decided to go with huge mountains that are more blocky and less ‘sloping’, will make the world look more stylized and interesting imo.
I really like the design choices you are talking about in terms of world generation, both tactical and aesthetic. Cheers. ^^

madda

Hi there,

thx for new picz, looking great!
Perhaps the engine could build landscapes with different biomes and although with different looking forms of mountains?

And i’m looking forward for your first river ;D *making ready for go fishing*

Steve Adamo

indeed, there will be other biomes… one of the first stretch goals was for the arctic biome in fact…

madda

arw … i knew i should have read again what you planed … ;D

Marten Woxberg

Is it just me or hasn’t there been a stream yet?
The last one in the archive on twitch.tv is 20 days old?

mpsinclair

I caught the last 10 minutes of it last night, but it looks like the recorded stream isn’t up yet? Which is strange, I thought they were available pretty soon after they finished.

inkblotSRK

Unfortunately, Twitch changed the default for archiving stream to off, so this episode wasn’t recorded. I’ve switch archiving back on for the future.

mpsinclair

Oh man, that’s disappointing! At least it’s on for next time, though.

Thanks for the reply!

Anipaq

Oh that sucks!

Sirius

Didn’t have time yesterday to catch this, is it gonna get archived on twitch? (Or did it somehow not happen?)

Steve Adamo

it seems twitch had made a change to the default behavior, and archiving was disabled… its been fixed for the next stream though…

Nicolas Velasquez

that really sucks, i missed it too, ehhh, there still are many streams to watch in the future.

Nomad

Fantastic Job!

darkgaming

cant wait to play this game its looks soooo amazing you guys are doing an amazing job

Mr. Adventure

i really like how you guys want the mountains to be very strategical but also look kinda natural, a problem i see is that when you look from above, the mountain top (where you can walk & build) is still completely straight at the edges, maybe it could be a bit more randomized, just a little bit like 2-3 voxels or something cause right now i think it would be a pain in the arse to look at everyday

Mr. Adventure

I would really like if there were like different kinda gamemodes you could choose when you start the game, fx you could choose peace/peaceful/something, then you would have more crops and population would maybe increase faster and there would be more customization, then maybe there could also be like a military gamemode where you could have siege ladders and crossbows/spears and cavalry and maybe even siegetowers and stuff, also of cause there should be a core and everything mode if gamemodes were added

Like most, I agree they need work too, but I don’t think “more realistic” is the way to go though. Add more levels to allow traversal or for general aesthetic, or cave entrances. We haven’t really heard about “mining” abilities/crafting yet, so this may be something that develops as the game continues. So far this terrain looks excellent.

Great how dedicated you guys are to making the systems easy for us. Terrain looks good, mountains maybe do need a bit of work as mentioned in other comments, but I’m sure when it’s 99% done (I don’t think you guys will say it’s ever definitely done for a long time) it’ll look a lot more fine tuned than it does now. Keep it up guys!

And now… NOW… with this desktop tuesday… you kill me T_T now i cant wait more. Not now when u can see the world (obviously, they need a little bit more of work… but… seen cool at this moment! and will be more cool at the end, i know).

Maybe have multiple colors and shades, different kinds of rocks ect. will help break up the ‘too blockyness’ of the mountains. But I have full confidence in this team, I’m positive it’ll look good in the end. I’m very happy with it so far! Keep up the good work.

I like the idea of having blocky areas but i think flat and “hilly” areas would also provide plenty of tactical challenge as well. Sometimes a battle in a valley can be more challenging than one in the hills. This would make it so people have to move and flanke and find hier ground.

You guys are the most professional team, with a project I’ve ever been interested in backing, on Kickstarter. Excellent development blog, keeping everyone in the loop with concise, consistent updates. It’s inspiring to see such a small group of people take something like this on! Keep up the updates and good work!

Just, GOOD JOB (/clap), It’s nice to see how every tuesday i can read a piece of information to know what you’re doing right now, it feels great, and it feels even better when i know that i can participate in the forums and that i’ve helped you to make this possible

I’ll probably watch the stream when it’s done (4:00 PM pacific it’s 2:00 AM for me :p) but the game looks pretty nice right now!! keep up the good work!!

Looks really great up till now. I’m sure once you get the mountains right it will look fantastic. Following this game now for more than a month and getting really impressed. Will u use alpha maps for mountain generation?

If you make the trees drop red leaves at fall. Then at spring make the trees reproduce small trees nearby that grows over time. So if you leave your starting village and go build a new one, when you come back you will find that the vegetation has taken it back
If you could please take a minute and tell me what you think I’d be more than happy

im not sure about auto-growth like you’ve described (which sounds great!), but players will likely be able to plant their own trees:

Can we replant trees, or do we just deforest our world?

“I think you need to be able to plant trees, it’s just a matter of when … so sure you’ll be able to plant trees .. it’ll be something figured out in tuning.”

Are resources on the map finite, will we have to start a new game because they’re exhausted?

“I hope not, that’d be a horrible reason to restart a game … you shouldn’t have to restart the game because you feel like you’ve made bad choices … there’ll always be a way to find resources from somewhere … dig deeper, trade, replant trees …”

Very promising! I love the fact that y’all decided to go with huge mountains that are more blocky and less ‘sloping’, will make the world look more stylized and interesting imo.
I really like the design choices you are talking about in terms of world generation, both tactical and aesthetic. Cheers. ^^

i really like how you guys want the mountains to be very strategical but also look kinda natural, a problem i see is that when you look from above, the mountain top (where you can walk & build) is still completely straight at the edges, maybe it could be a bit more randomized, just a little bit like 2-3 voxels or something cause right now i think it would be a pain in the arse to look at everyday

I would really like if there were like different kinda gamemodes you could choose when you start the game, fx you could choose peace/peaceful/something, then you would have more crops and population would maybe increase faster and there would be more customization, then maybe there could also be like a military gamemode where you could have siege ladders and crossbows/spears and cavalry and maybe even siegetowers and stuff, also of cause there should be a core and everything mode if gamemodes were added